Going to the Dogs

FABIAN GOING TO THE DOGS FABIAN GOING TO THE DOGS GERMANY / 2021 / 176 Minutes INDEX Synopsis...........................................................................................................................3 Press Notes......................................................................................................................4 Storyline...........................................................................................................................5 Director’s Statement…...………………………………………………………………………………………...….6 "Fabian, our Contemporary World" by Hernán D. Caro.................................................10 Biography Dominik Graf..................................................................................................12 Biography Tom Schilling..................................................................................................12 Biography Albrecht Schuch.............................................................................................13 Biography Saskia Rosendahl............................................................................................14 Credits.............................................................................................................................15 Contact............................................................................................................................16 2 SYNOPSIS Berlin, 1931. Jakob Fabian works in the advertising department of a cigarette factory during the day and drifts through bars, brothels and artist studios with his wealthy friend Labude at night. When Fabian gets to know the self-confident Cornelia, he manages to shed his pessimistic attitude for a brief moment. He falls in love. But then he too falls victim to the great wave of layoffs, while Cornelia makes a career as an actress thanks to her boss and admirer. An arrangement that Fabian finds difficult to come to terms with. But it's not just his world that is falling apart… 3 PRESS NOTES With novelistic breadth and the vibrant, kinetic textures of a hedonistic age, writer-director Dominik Graf (Die Katze, Beloved Sisters) shows a society teetering on the abyss, turning his lens on the everyday people who rose and fell in the heady days before Hitler’s reign. Jakob Fabian (Tom Schilling) is a 32-year-old war veteran with literary aspirations navigating trauma and uncertainty in Berlin during the four-year period between the 1929 market crash and the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933. Frequenting decadent cabarets at night and writing advertising copy by day, he falls in love with aspiring actress Cornelia Battenberg (Saskia Rosendahl), loses his job amid peak unemployment, and discovers heartbreak and tragedy in the company of wealthy best friend Stephane (Albrecht Schuch), an academic yearning for a bright future. Based on Erich Kastner’s novel Going to the Dogs: The Story of a Moralist, Fabian captures the angst and weltschmerz of the Weimar Republic through the emotions and experiences of a singular young man whose libertinism and shell-shock defined a generation — and whose slow-boil submergence into a terrifying new political system reverberates into the present day. Fabian or Going to the Dogs is based on Erich Kästner's novel of the same name, published in the author's original version in 2013, eighty-two years after its original publication, as Fabian, the Story of a Moralist, in 1931. The screenplay is by director Dominik Graf (The Beloved Sisters, 2014; In the Face of Crime, 2010) and cowriter Constantin Lieb (Asphaltgorillas, 2018; Eden, 2019). The film stars Tom Schilling (Never Look Away, 2018; A Coffee in Berlin, 2012) as Fabian, Albrecht Schuch (Berlin Alexanderplatz, 2020; System Crasher, 2019) as Labude, and Saskia Rosendahl (Relativity, 2020; Never Look Away, 2018) as Cornelia. Meret Becker, Michael Wittenborn, Petra Kalkutschke, Eva Medusa Gühne and Elmar Gutmann co-star. It was shot at original locations in Görlitz, Malschwitz, Bautzen, Berlin, Kleinmachnow, and at Studio Babelsberg. Fabian, or Going to the Dogs is produced by Lupa Film GmbH in coproduction with DCM Pictures GmbH and ZDF, in collaboration with ARTE, in cooperation with Amilux Filmproduktionsgesellschaft mbH and Studio Babelsberg AG, with the support of the BKM, DFFF, MDM, MBB and FFF. DCM Film Distribution will release the film nationally in 2021. 4 STORYLINE After his graduation, Jakob Fabian is drawn into the metropolis of early 1930s Berlin. He finds a job in the advertising department of a cigarette factory during the day and drifts through pubs, brothels and artist studios with his best friend Labude at night. Unlike his wealthy and politically engaged friend, Fabian remains a somewhat distant observer. He prefers to look at current affairs with fatalism and ironic detachment. While Labude falls head over heels into excess and affairs after a tragic breakup, Fabian meets the self- confident legal trainee Cornelia Battenberg. A woman who has renounced the male world and is not looking for a new relationship. For Fabian, however, she is the ray of light in the gloomy Berlin night. Just as he is ready to take a more positive outlook on life, Fabian too falls victim to the great wave of layoffs, just as Cornelia gives in to the advances of her boss, the film producer Makart, who corrupts her with the promise of an acting career. Heartbroken, Fabian leaves her. He is driven even more deeply into general pessimism when his friend Labude unexpectedly commits suicide. Fabian flees from Berlin to his parents in Dresden and after some time finds the courage to contact Cornelia again, whose acting career seems to be taking off, with Makart hovering in the background. Their flame is still alive, and they arrange to meet in their local pub. On his way to meet her, Fabian will be confronted with yet another challenge to prove his worth as a human being. Based on famous German author and journalist Erich Kästner’s semi-autobiographic novel, published in 1931 and later banned and burned by the National Socialists. 5 DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT She looked at him with a serious expression. "I am no angel, sir. We live in bad times for angels. What are we to do? When we fall for a man, we give ourselves up to him. We cut ourselves off from all there was before, and we go to him. Here I am, we say, with a friendly smile. Yes, here you are, he says, and scratches the back of his head. Lord above, he thinks, now I'm lumbered with her. With a light heart, we give him all we have. And he curses. Our gifts irritate him. At first, he curses softly. Later, he curses out loud. And we're left more alone than ever before. I'm twenty-five years old, and I've been left by two men. Like an umbrella you deliberately forget somewhere. Do you mind my speaking so frankly?" 6 The film's subtitle, which was the original title of the novel, and now officially once more is, instead of Fabian, is Going to the Dogs. It may not be the most upbeat, but this is far more than a merciless situation report. Kästner paints a portrait of his Berlin in the "everyday" late twenties, 1929 or 1930: no picturesque urban grime; political tumult still halfway under control; no Fritz Lang-style underworld; definitely no expressionist artistic biographies; and no razzle-dazzle anywhere. Instead, the dreams, and maybe artistic ambitions, of the lower classes; and the existential despair of the wealthy bourgeois. Young people sit in groups or alone in apartments or cafés, drinking a lot, talking about their lovelives, or reflecting on their feelings in general. Kästner's dialogue is, as ever, witty, charming, occasionally dark and sad, and perhaps even prescient. The locations are unspectacular. They should ring true without an expensive costume drama feel. The idea is to train the eye on the characters, and their twists and turns. And love, which is in the air between Fabian and Cornelia, should be able to overcome all obstacles. But "want some love, need some money" as Marieluise Fleißer's lovers comment in her 1924 play Purgatory in Ingolstadt. This was particularly true for young people, especially in those economically catastrophic times. Maintaining the flame of love requires going to extraordinary lengths. Lengths that exact a price in hurt feelings, frustrated desires and budding mistrust between the lovers. And then it's back to the bars, or brothels masquerading as "ateliers" and offering a fast track to ultimately urgent self-destruction. Those broken dreams need to be escaped one way or another. 7 Fabian, as the publishers titled the novel, has practically no plot. "At last! Wonderful!", I thought. A story of its times, of love and loss, and nothing else. Fabian is at odds with himself. He wants to be a writer, but is a copywriter. Even in love, which crashes over him like a wave, just when he's given up on the concept, he has to battle with himself, with the times he lives in. He is skeptical, smart, a bit of a grouch but an all-round sweetie. I was convinced that Tom Schilling could best embody Fabian. Without him, I don't think I'd have made the movie. It's easy to say in retrospect, but I swear that when we were writing, my cowriter Constantin Liebs and I had him in our minds' eyes. Saskia Rosendahl, as Cornelia, who wants to go far, and take Fabian with her (despite his apprehension of her potential success!), and Albrecht Schuch as Labude, the crisis-prone heir of neglectful parents, disdained by others, who laughs a lot, tries to be happy, and wallows in the depths of despair—I was thrilled

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